Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 7 May 1992

Vol. 132 No. 9

Industrial Policy Review Group Report: Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That Seanad Éireann notes the report of the Industrial Policy Review Group — a time for change — Industrial Policy for the 1990s.

—(Senator Wright.)

Mr. McDonald

I should like at the outset to welcome the Minister and I want to put a question. I know she is capable of giving not only me but the House and the country a very firm answer. On 29 March The Sunday Tribune ran a very interesting article. I would like to quote a few paragraphs:

Two devastating commentaries on the performance of our Governments emerged last week.

The most startling was the revelation that between 1981 and 1990 the State paid £1.6 billion (£1,600,000,000) in grants to private companies in order to create jobs, and that by 1990 this had resulted in just 7,000 permanent jobs. In addition, tax reliefs of almost £3 billion (£2,980,000,000) were given.

Thus the total cost per permanent job to the Exchequer was £654,285.

This figure excludes grants from the European Social Fund and Section 84 loans. Thus the real cost to the Exchequer per permanent job created may be in the region of £750,000.

I seem to have missed any reaction from the Minister or the Department to that article. I presume what the paper is doing is calculating the entire cost of the service. I do not know what the IDA staff complement is. Many people throughout the country are concerned with the problem of unemployment and with the difficulty of creating real jobs. I would like if in the course of this debate or in her reply, the Minister would explain this to the House, if there is an explanation. It seems a high figure for the creation of a single job. I think that kind of information is offputting. In the agencies serving in this area there should be a greater amount of risk capital at an earlier stage for people who have ideas and who want to get a business going.

However, it is a completely different scenario if you are talking about multinationals or large, established firms coming here. They have all the in-house facilities available. I think, perhaps erroneously, that there is a clique, well established firms of consultants to whom a businessman must go in order to make progress establishing jobs. Next year hopefully, there will be closer European Union. The Minister and Government must look very clearly at the basis of our industrial development. According to the headlines in this week's newspapers, the Apple multinational propose to transfer some of their industrial development to the Third World to avail of a cheaper labour force. Should we not more clearly identify a few areas of high quality production in which we excel? Should we not, for instance, take another look at agricultural production? Agriculture is in difficulty because over the years, the big players in agricultural processing have been content to sit back and take the easy shilling by putting everything they produce into intervention and bellyaching at whatever Government were in power to ensure that additional space was made available in cold storage for meat products, milk powder and so on.

I remember many years ago when Joe McGough or whoever was in An Bord Bainne and the old Pigs and Bacon Commission were able to sell quality Irish products across the world, even in the under-developed countries but the incentive to do that has been lost. I am rather nervous when talking about organic products because in the forties, in my youth, when we did not have access to artificial fertilisers, sprays and pesticides, organic farming was a pain. It was very difficult and you had to creep along the ground, pull weeds, thistles, docks, etc. It is easier now. With better machinery that can do a good job tilling the soil, organic production might work. There must be room for organic production of white meat especially. Unless a significant premium is paid for the organic production of beef it would not as profitable as it is for people involved in beef production who are using injections and the hormones that are illegal but are still unfortunately, being used.

I would like to see a Cabinet subcommittee including the Minister present and the Minister for Agriculture and Food to go study in depth job creation and to have markets identified. I know the markets are there in the Golden Triangle of Europe where top quality products can command a premium price. It would be in our interest to produce for that market if we could set up a system of farms and the Department could certify that the production was organic or free range. We cannot compete with industrial farms in Europe, especially in Holland, that are availing of the cheap meal substitutes and are able to produce food, with the aid of various chemicals, very quickly and rather cheaply.

Another area in which I think there must be greater prospects, but in which the Government do not appear to have much interest, is non-food production. The Minister for Energy summarily dismissed it as being uneconomic and not viable. I do not think his figures could have been up to date. I would like to see the Departments of Energy, the Environment and Agriculture and Food getting together to see what the prospects are. The Minister wrote off the idea of rape seed for energy as taking 500,000 acres to replace the diesel required for our road service. When you consider that the acreage of beet allowed to be sown in this country under both the ANB share contract from Europe is only around 80,000 acres and that there are contracts on barley and every other crop, so what if it takes 500,000 acres. We have over one million acres of arable land with very little to sow. A few months ago the market even for prime beef was shaky because we did not have sufficient buyers. There should be greater direction from the Government.

We are moving into a new era and we should have a very definite policy on the way we intend to go. Many specific areas have a marketing advantage based on low cost production and a clear, environmentally friendly image that we like to portray here. Over the last number of years introduced seven pieces of environmentally friendly legislation on air pollution, water pollution and so on. Are they being implemented? Have the county councils been financed to put the legislation into effect? I do not think so. Have the regulations promised been drafted? We have a lot of Irish solutions to problems that will worsen unless penalties are introduced.

I was listening to a colleague on the radio one day last week as I was driving up to town, giving out about the smell of slurry being spread around the countryside. That is the problem if you are in cattle production. You have to find a way of disposing of the slurry. If we were to be on top of the job from an economic point of view, surely Eolas, the Government or An Foras Talúntais should be funded to come up with a gas digester that could be applied at farm level to take the methane gas from the slurry and put it to economic use on the farm or the household or sell it in containers or in cans as Calor Gas or Kosangas is sold. The residue used to fertilise the land would be odourless. It is not much use giving out about production and the byproducts, whether they are smells or noise. We need more jobs.

It is a shame that 300,000 people are unemployed. I do not say that to be critical. It is a problem for this country. I know the Minister and the Government will try to find ways to solve this problem. We will not get one factory here that is going to employ 100,000 or 300,000 people. We must explore all avenues to encourage employment. I would ask the Minister to try to find a way to lower the cost to an employer of employing someone. This is a huge problem.

The labour relations legislation — such as the Unfair Dismissals Act — are very necessary, and are an improvement. Years ago you could ask a friend or a neighbour to employ somebody and they could do that but if one takes on somebody now who proves unsuccessful or does not fit the niche on offer, it is very difficult to get rid of them. We should be conscious of that problem

The Minister for Finance should find ways of raising money other than by taxing direct employment. I would prefer to see income tax and PRSI lowered and perhaps an increase in the spending tax. VAT could be increased so that people who are spending would pay. Then, if people do not want to spend, at least they would have control over their own income.

I would like to see much of the legislation that has been enacted by the Oireachtas over the last number of years implemented. It should have the force of law. It is not much use having legislation on the books if it is being ignored. If we are going to compete, and if we are going to fall back on agriculture and tourism, the environment is of great significance. I would like to see the role of Eolas and Teagasc being greatly increased through increased funding.

We have had, for instance, in the last 25 or 30 years an industrial research station on peat development at Lullymore, County Kildare. I do not know whether it is closed, but it certainly is not as active as it was. A huge body of research was very clearly identified there. I find it inexplicable that Government policy is to hand over the cutover bogs to Coillte instead of producing the very wide range of vegetables and agricultural products that can be economically produced on such bogs. Research has been done in that area.

Despite the fact that we have a Minister of State with responsibility for horticulture, we import £40 million worth of ordinary vegetables such as carrots, onions and leeks which could be grown easily in any part of the country. That is a national disgrace. It is unnecessary. The problem may be that the housewife finds that the home grown horticultural products are not being marketed or presented properly and do not represent good value. There can be nothing on the market in a fresher state than something that is grown at home; imported products cannot be fresher. If the cost of air transport is added, the imported product cannot compete with the home grown product on the basis of price. The Government must look at import substitution. It is not a big task, but it has to be tackled. It is nonsense to find imported vegetables from Holland, Cyprus or Israel in our towns. I am not against importing products from any country, but why do we not encourage people to grow vegetables at home? The supermarket chains seem to have a facility of doing what they like. They import in bulk, probably through some sort of contract system and they may frown on a local producer going in with a cartload of vegetables.

The Government have a responsibility to ensure that acceptable standards are enforced. If the Trade Descriptions Act was adhered to, people would be able to buy good Irish products. It is through ventures like that that we will pick up a few jobs here and there and they can add up to a sizeable total.

We have an excellent education system. We have a healthy race of people and we have a very bright young population but we do not seem to be able to find them gainful employment. I read, with great interest, the Culliton report. They are still looking for grandiose new factories which are expected to create thousands of jobs. That is not the answer. We must find employment for three, six or ten people here and there right across the country in small private workshops which will be trying to compete with craft industries from under-developed countries. We have to work on that.

A number of emigrants have returned from the UK over the last number of months. Many of these are craftsmen, some are skilled people, probably in the building trade. Some of them have tried to set up workshops to make small pieces of furniture. They seem to be competing with imports from Taiwan or Third World countries. There is a temptation for them to stay on the dole here. An agency, whether it is the IDA or some other organisation, should be able to finance such people. The amount they would get on the dole for a year could be aggregated to try to set them up and to see if they could create a small manufacturing unit for themselves, employing one or two persons. The research and the development should be financed on a county level. The regions are too remote, if you are talking about an individual in a village, or whatever.

When looking at the prospect of industrialisation of our country, we must remember that there has been a significant contribution to the upgrading of infrastructures in every county. While we have roads, railways and telecommunications in place the creation of jobs is not following after them. In practically every county there are county development officers. I do not know to whom they are answerable.

It is important that an effort should be made to monitor the number of new jobs created in each county. Young people who wish to start up and become self-employed should be given every encouragement by the State. The State should find a way of capitalising their dole entitlement over a year or 18 months, to see whether, with a once-off injection, or whether, it would be possible to sustain them while they get on their feet. If the experiment failed, at least we will have tried. I wish the Minister success in her task. The task is enormous with 300,000, mainly young people, unemployed. We must get greater productivity from the IDA, Shannon Development and Údarás. They must be able to compete with what is being offered in other EC countries.

Mr. Lanigan

I welcome the Minister to the House in her new role. I am sure if she works as hard in her new area as she did in her former area we will see many changes in her sphere of influence.

We are discussing the Culliton report at a time when we have a huge number, and growing number, of unemployed in Ireland. It is good to see that the Culliton report is addressing many of the problems which apply to the termination of increased unemployment. The Government do not provide jobs. The job of Government is not to provide jobs; the job of Government should never be to provide jobs. The Government's role should be to provide an atmosphere in which jobs can be created and maintained, and in which people can get the maximum return for the effort they put in — the maximum in terms of take home pay, and what they can get in the future in terms of pensions or sustenance when they are no longer able to work.

I have been working in business since 1957. It takes a marathon runner to stay in business at all. We have seen too many sprinters in business in this country. The sprinters come in and then they fade out and one of the reasons is that they have been over-reliant on Government subsidies. They have been over-reliant on protection from the system which most people have to endure. They have come in and gone out without paying their due taxes. They have left the people who have to try to stay in business in a situation where people look at them and say — to stay in business you must be a crook. Unfortunately, too many of the crooks are not in business; they have gone out of business.

If we look at the taxation returns for last year and at the number of people who were not contactable but who owed the bulk of outstanding tax in this country, we must ask why are these people able to leave without being contactable? They have no known addresses but they leave the country. There are people in the country, of course, who use the tax system to their own advantage. They use the tax collected as a means of livelihood rather than as a means of taking tax from somebody and passing it on to the Government.

There has been too much reliance on State intervention. Too many firms have used the cushion of State intervention to sustain them through the good times and when the bad times come they have not got the marketing skills or background to stay in business. Over the past number of years, the tax system has been corporate-managed by the bigger firms. When I say corporate-managed it seems the bigger the firm in Ireland the less tax they pay. This has been proved. In the bigger firms, because of manipulation of tax avoidance schemes, the highest paid people in this country take home the highest percentage of their earnings, whereas it should be the other way round. The lower paid people should take the highest percentage of their earnings home. We must get away from this. We must ensure that corporate-management of taxation avoidance ceases. Otherwise, there will never be any justice for the lower paid or for those who are in the social welfare system.

The numbers who are out of work are proof that the job creation policies of the IDA, Shannon Development and other State agencies have failed. There are a huge number of people working in foreign owned companies. Nevertheless, it has to be said that the biggest fall-out in terms of job losses has also been in foreign owned subsidiaries. We have seen further indications of that in the past week when a company in the west of Ireland, AT Cross, went on short time, even though it has been proved that the Irish factory is and has always been, a major contributor to the profits of that company. The internal politics of that company dictates that Ireland is a small country in which they can put people on short time, irrespective of the fact that the company is very successful here. They get a better return per worker here than they do in any of their other companies in the US or elsewhere. Again, in Cork this week, for strategic reasons, a major computer company is talking about reducing staff. They have not quantified how many staff will be let go because of the changes in their work methods. This shows the situation that applies in multinational companies.

Some years ago a major towel manufacturing company set up in Kilkenny. The marketing was done through London into Europe by American marketeers, the sales personnel were all American. Every invoice was written from South Carolina. People wondered why, in the end, that company failed. The main reason was that the Americans did not understand that towel rails in Ireland and Europe are a different size to towel rails in America. When they produced their co-ordinated sets of towels they did not fit the towel rails. This shows the stupidity of some of the people who were highly grant aided in this country.

Education is the area to which we have to address ourselves if we are to build a self-sufficient unit. The Culliton report suggest that the academic end of education — academic in the sense of the liberal arts — is exceptionally good, but education towards the workplace is extremely bad. We have to give, as the Culliton report says, priority to the acquisition of useable and marketing skills. Technical and vocational education should be enhanced. There is no question about that.

There was a change in the education of technical people over the past number of years. In the past there was an extremely good vocational education system; there was a streaming into vocational education and from there people were going into the technical industries. Unfortunately, the vocational system has, to a degree, joined the other areas of education. The technical aspects have basically been lost. As a result, we now have people coming out with the leaving certificate rather than the technical group certificate. After leaving certificate, if they get an apprenticeship an amount of their training is done off the job. If we wish to train people properly we should go back to the vocational education technical system we had before in order to provide these people with the expertise they would need to start an apprenticeship and that apprenticeship should take place mainly on the job.

Over the years, when people were trained on the job as apprentices there were more apprentices in situ than there are now. Because of the off-the-job system employers cannot afford to have apprenticeships. If a survey was done of the numbers in apprenticeships throughout the country as against the numbers that were in apprenticeships 20 years ago, one would find that there would not be one hundredth of the numbers in apprenticeships. This is going to create major problems if there is an upsurge in the economy. People who are capable of dealing with the support problems for industry just will not be there. If you do not have apprenticeships in the mechanical or service industries — whether it be electricians or whatever — you cannot have a reasonable support industry. There should be a major change in vocational training for people who are going into the technical area of support industry. I only got the Green Paper on education yesterday so I do not know whether that problem is addressed. I sincerely hope it is.

Looking at entry into work, I feel a great disservice is being done to young people by the present taxation system. I see no reason people in their first jobs should not have a tax free regime for a certain number of months, or even up to a certain age. In that way there would be losses in the direct tax take through PAYE; the PRSI could remain pretty much the same and the PAYE element should be eliminated. The State would get the money anyway. People who go into the workplace for the first time have priorities which are different from the priorities which they will have in later life. Their priorities are to go out and spend money, to buy clothes, to dine out, to spend money in public houses, dancehalls or in shops. Their spending means that they would be paying tax anyway. The VAT would take back what they do not pay directly. The tax system operates against a single young person. Tax concessions for first time employees should be looked at very carefully. The State would not lose anything because young people are spenders. The Government would get the money back indirectly, rather than directly. Many of these people, if they decided to save their money, might set up their own small businesses within a short time of going into the workplace.

Looking at the taxation system and unemployment, I think we could again ease the unemployment system drastically if there was a tax concession given to people who are going back into the workplace from the unemployment social welfare system. The rate of taxation that people pay dictates that it does not really pay people to leave the social welfare system. They have to look at the margins of tax and what they would lose in terms of the concessions they get in the social welfare system. In particular this applies to people who are married and with children. The tax regime for people re-entering the workplace is too harsh. If it were looked at very carefully it could have a major impact on real job creation. It would take away reliance on the black economy which, in many industries, is endemic to the industry. The building industry is one in which the black economy thrives. It probably thrives equally well in the agriculture industry.

FÁS should be looked at, as has been suggested. We get statistics from FÁS as to the number of people who have gone through courses. We get statistics as to the number who are on social employment-type educational schemes, but we do not get from FÁS information about the number of people who have permanent jobs as a result of doing FÁS courses. Even though the numbers on FÁS courses are increasing, and a certain number of people have benefited reasonably well from FÁS courses, we must look at the long term benefits that have accrued in terms of continuing employment as a result of the money that is being spent in FÁS. We must look at the make-up of FÁS personnel. It is no longer good enough that it should be Civil Service led people who are involved in FÁS. We have to get away from that. FÁS personnel should be industry led, and not Civil Service led. Too many people leave FÁS to set up there own businesses. It should be the other way round; people who are business orientated should work in FÁS.

This applies also to the IDA. Over the years, from the chief executives down, people have left the IDA to go into private industry, having spent many years in semi-State employment. They do not know the real workplace. Because they have contacts within the major industries and the State supported industries, they are able to find their way into private employment. I would rather see it the other way round; people with industry and marketing skills should go into the IDA. One of the major problems with State bodies is that they are not orientated into the real business world.

Mention was made by Senator McDonald of the difficulties people have in setting up businesses in Ireland. That is true. The standards for buildings set by the IDA and by State bodies far surpass the standards required in any other industrial country. We have beautiful buildings which were not cost-effective in terms of setting them up. Because they are built to the highest standards the people who want to use them cannot afford to do so. That is not the way to promote business.

The best businesses in the world have been built from the ground up. Success in business is not dictated by the physical makeup of buildings but by the expertise of people developing their skills. They first develop their business acumen and their cash backing and then go on to build monuments to themselves in the form of buildings. The standards set by the IDA for industrial buildings are too high. I am not advocating jerry-built buildings but there has to be a place for low cost buildings which can be afforded by new small businesses. Development can follow.

The cost of employing people is too high in concept and in real terms. An employer has to pay 12.2 per cent of the gross wages of an employee in PRSI. To the employer and to many of the employees PRSI does not seem to be of any benefit. They see it as a deduction from their wages without, in many cases, any visible return. It is obvious that people who lose their jobs need the backing of PRSI payments, but it is an inhibition to people who are thinking of taking on extra employees. The employee only looks at the bottom line, but the employer looks at the figures above that line. To the basic rate of 12.2 per cent must be added employer's liability insurance of 6 per cent in the case of clerical, or 3 per cent for nonclerical workers, making a total of 18.2 per cent or 15.2 per cent. Further insurance and backups are normally needed also to keep people in work and the real cost of employing a person could be as high as 25 per cent of their gross wages. Very few industries can sustain such costs.

It has been said in the report that there is a need to develop infrastructure. The Government are addressing this vital area and have been doing so over recent years. There are shortfalls. There would appear to be a magnificent road structure between Dublin and Belfast, Dublin and Waterford, Waterford and Cork, Cork and Kerry, Kerry and Limerick, Limerick and Galway, Galway and Sligo. The peripheral roads have been best maintained. If one drives from Dublin to Limerick however once one passes Newbridge the road, which is the main supplier for the west of Ireland, is a disaster. It consists of bog roads, humpback roads and bends that should not be found on a county road let alone a national road. Apart from the development of EC assisted roads around the coast connecting our ports, which are very important, proper link roads must be developed between these ports, the midlands and the west of Ireland. A multi-million pound new port is being built at Belville, County Kilkenny, in the Waterford Estuary. It will be the biggest ferryport in Ireland, a major boost to industry as it will reduce the turnaround time for ships and exports will be greatly speeded up. If one wants to go from there to Cork however there is only one bridge across the River Suir, which means that access to the main Cork road from that ferry port is determined by the volume of traffic on that bridge. The benefits of that ferryport will not be seen until a proper road structure is built giving access from it into the national grid.

In the Government's efforts over the years to create jobs too little time has been spent looking at the value of support industries. Without support industries the main manufacturing industries could not survive. Support industries get no State subvention. They have had to live within their means. They have had to develop their businesses without State subvention. If we are to increase job creation we must have a better balance between what is given to manufacturing industry and what is given to the support industries, which are of vital importance. I am referring to transport, maintenance and other necessary services. One of the problems of industry is that the cost of transportation is too high. The State's take in terms of import taxes, of taxes on vehicle parts and so on, is much too high. Road tax is too high. Many tax concessions given to industry are lost because of the high cost of getting goods to market.

The role that could be played by the State and semi-State enterprises in the build-up of employment was mentioned. Senator McDonald referred to the fact that Bord na Móna have not been allowed to go the way they wish. I can see the problems that have come about as a result of the closure of Lullymore and the resulting loss of jobs. Like many other State enterprises, Bord na Móna lost their way. They had a core industrial base, the production of fuel for burning, whether in fireplaces or in the generation of electricity. They did that extremely well and that is where the jobs are, in the turf area. They diversified at a time when they were debt-ridden and their debts are horrific. At a time of escalating debt they went into diversification in France and in Ireland which added to the burden of the company. No business in the private sector would have been allowed by their banks or directors to do what that company have done over recent years.

The report suggests that a squeeze should be put on the State grants to foreign companies coming here. I absolutely agree with that because the best supporters in the Irish industrial field have been the small indigenous firms which have been set up here and which have grown. In many cases they have grown to the extent that they have been able to export their expertise and buy companies outside Ireland. The reliance the IDA and other State bodies have placed on outside countries should be reduced and the aim in the future should be to help small Irish indigenous industries and to give tax incentives to those re-entering employment. Equally, young people should not be taxed at the rates at which they are being taxed. I would suggest that they should pay no tax for a certain period. The Government would not lose one penny by allowing that and it would give young people the confidence they badly need when they first become employed.

There is no easy solution to the unemployment crisis in this country. The Government are working extremely hard to try to remedy the situation. There is a spirit of determination within the Government to solve this problem. I welcome the discussion of the report in this House.

Pól Ó Foighil

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit anseo le plé, staidéar agus cur is cúiteamh a dhéanamh ar an ábhar iontach seo atá curtha os ár gcomhair, an Culliton report. Tá sé fíorthábhachtach dúinne san iarthar go ndéanfaimis scrúdú an-ghéar ar an tuairisc seo. Ar ámharaí an tsaoil, agus an tuairisc seo faoi chaibidil againn, tá gasúir anseo taobh thiar díom as an iarthar, as Mainistir na Búille, agus is deas iad bheith i láthair. Baineann an tuairisc seo liomsa mar dhuine atá ag obair san iarthar agus a bhfuil mo shaol caite ag obair ansin, mar is tuarascáil thábhachtach é in am seo na cinniúna. Baineann cur i ngníomh na tuarascála seo le slánú, neartú agus forbairt an iarthair.

Beidh Seanadóirí ag cur a gcásanna féin ar aghaidh chun a gceantair féin a fhorbairt, agus an ceart acu. Tá baint ag an tuarascáil seo le chuile ghné de shaol chuile dhuine againn, is cuma cén chuid den tír as a bhfuilimid. Tá sé léirithe ag an Teach seo an tsuim atá sa tuarascáil, atá curtha le chéile go proifisiúnta ag daoine atá ainmnithe ag an Aire Tionscail agus Tráchtála. Tá sé fíorthábhachtach go ndéanfaimis staidéar ar an staid ina bhfuil rudaí faoi láthair agus, níos tábhachtaí ná sin, ar an moltaí atá ann chun an staid sin a chur ina ceart.

Tá roinnt mhaith ráite ann mar gheall ar an IDA, Údarás na Gaeltachta, SFADCO agus na hinstitiúidí sin a bhfuil an bhunchumhacht acu agus an dualgas orthu feabhas a chur ar chúrsaí tionscail agus tráchtála. Is dócha gurb é an scéal atá á chur go láidir ar ár súile dúinn anseo ná, tar éis lear mór airgid bheith caite ag an Stát ar thionsclaíocht agus ag bunadh monarchana, go bhfuil teipthe ar an Stát, ar chuile Rialtas le blianta anuas. Is léir do dhuine ar bith a dhéanann staidéar ar an tuarascáil seo go n-admhaíonn na daoine seo go bhfuil teipthe glan ar an Rialtas fadhb seo na dífhostaíochta a réiteach. Is dócha gurb é an fáth gur cuireadh an coiste le chéile ná le deis a thabhairt don Aire agus don Rialtas athmhachnamh a dhéanamh sa chaoi go bhféadfaí an rud ar theip glan air a chur taobh thiar dínn.

Nuair a deirim gur theip glan ar chúrsaí, níl mé a rá nach raibh éifeacht ar bith sna hiarrachtaí a bhí ar bun ag an Stát go dtí seo. Ach na hiarrachtaí a rinneadh agus na spriocanna a baineadh amach, níor leor iad, rud atá le feiceáil sna 300,000 duine beagnach atá dífhostaithe faoi láthair. Mar sin tá sé ámharach, agus tá an Rialtas le moladh, go bhfaca siad go raibh géarghá le scrúdú a chur ar bun agus tuarascáil a scríobh chun go bhféadfaí na moltaí atá anseo a chur i gcrích. Ach má ghlacaimid leis go bhfuil na moltaí sin ceart, go bhfuil réasúnaíocht dhomhain taobh thiar de na moltaí atá ann, go bhfuil inghlactha leo agus gur féidir gníomhú agus dul chun cinn a dhéanamh, ceapaimse, fad agus a bhaineann sé leis an iarthar — agus beidh gach duine ag caint ar a cheantar féin — nach bhfuil aon bhealach ann go leigheasóidh siad an scéal. Tá na moltaí seo curtha sa chaoi go ndéanfaidh siad slánú maidir le banú iarthar na hÉireann, ó Dhún na nGall anuas trí Shligeach, Liatroim, Ros Comáin, Mhaigh Eo, Ghaillimh, Chiarraí Theas agus Chorcaigh Theas. Caithfidh mé a rá, faoi bhrón, go gceapaimse nach réiteach é sin.

Tá mé ag bunú mo chuid tuairimíochta ar fhoilsiú na tuarascála, go mórmhór ar thuarascáil DKM consultants. Is é bunús mo chuid fealsúnachta agus mo chuid argóinte gur teip fós atá i ndán don Rialtas mura leigheasann siad na bunchúiseanna a bhaineann leis an meath, an dílárú, agus leis an imirce, fadhbanna a chuireann as don iarthar. Ba mhaith liom freisin a admháil go bhfuil sárphointí ann, ó thaobh na tíre de, agus míreanna a chuireann síos go soiléir ar dhul chun cinn agus ar an méid atá le déanamh. Ba mhaith liom a rá freisin go bhfuil an tAire — agus an Rialtas, tá súil agam — ag gníomhú chun rud éigin a chur i gcrích, ach má ghlacann sé leis an tuairim a nocht DKM don ghrúpa athbhreithnithe seo, tá an tairne deireanach á chur i gcónra dhífhostaíochta agus imirce iarthar na hÉireann.

Ní gan bhunús atá sé seo á rá agam mar, má bhreathnaíonn tú ar na moltaí atá curtha le chéile ag an DKM don ghrúpa athbhreithnithe, más ionann an meon atá ag na comhairleoirí sin agus ag an ngrúpa athbhreithnithe tig linn glacadh leis go bhfuil díothú agus bás iarthar na hÉireann cinntithe. Is aisteach liom é seo a rá ach caithfidh mé é a rá, mar is é an focal scríofa, dar liom, an focal is cruinne a léiríonn meon chomhairleoirí DKM. Ba mhaith liom aire an Tí seo a dhíriú ar chuid de na moltaí atá acu, ar cheithre cinn san iomlán, agus a bhaineann leis an iarthar. Ba mhaith liom moltaí a 4, 5 agus 7 a léamh amach, díreach mar atá siad sa leabhar le go dtuigfimid cá bhfuil ár dtriall agus céard atá i ndán don iarthar.

Tá mé ag caint anois faoin tuairisc a chuir comhairleoirí DKM ar fáil don ghrúpa athbhreithnithe agus tá sé seo sínithe ag rúnaí an ghrúpa, John Kelly, a bhí ag obair leo. Foilsíodh seo go hoifigiúil mar leabhar, agus deir uimhir a 4: "The development agencies should facilitate rather than attempt to influence the location decisions of firms". Má leanann tú leis an réasúnaíocht sin, tá a fhios againn uilig — agus tá sé seo ráite sách minic — gur buille uafásach don iarthar é seo. Bíonn gá i gcónaí le hiarrachtaí speisialta ón Stát maidir le tionsclaíocht agus tráchtáil a fhorbairt, ach tháinig an moladh a luaigh mé ó chomhairleoirí an Stáit.

Cá bhfágann sé sin SFADCo agus Údarás na Gaeltachta? Cuireadh an tÚdarás ar bun go foirmiúil ag an Rialtas 12 bliain ó shin chun cuidiú le forbairt tionsclaíochta agus tráchtála na Gaeltachta, agus tá san áireamh na himeallacha atá amuigh ar Aigéan an Atlantaigh, go dtabharfaí cúnamh speisialta dóibh siúd chun iad a choinneáil ansin, poist a chur ar fáil dóibh, ionas go bhféadfaidís príomhaidhm an Rialtais a chomhlíonadh, is é sin, an teanga a athbheochan agus á láidriú.

Sa tuarascáil seo atá curtha ar fáil ag DKM, tá siad ag moladh nach mbeadh aon deis ag Údarás na Gaeltachta tionsclóirí a mhealladh isteach go dtí na ceantair seo, cineál cúnaimh speisialta a thabhairt dóibh anois agus arís chun go bhféadaidís lonnú sna háiteanna sin. Ba le leas an Tí seo turas a dhéanamh thart ar na Gaeltachtaí ó Dhún na nGall go Ciarraí; d'fheicfí na háiteanna iargúlta ar imeall na farraige, áiteanna inar tógadh monarchana agus a bhfuil daoine fostaithe iontu, de bharr obair Údarás na Gaeltachta, de bharr cúnaimh speisialta agus de bharr daoine a mhealladh ansin.

Bheadh aiféala orm dá gcuirfí moladh mar sin os comhair an Rialtais, moladh DKM. Tá súil le Dia agam nach bhfuiltear chun glacadh leis an moladh sin. Scríobh mé féin chuig an Taoiseach, chuig an Aire Cumarsáide, chuig cathaoirleach an Tascfhórsa, Pádraig Ó Muircheartaigh, agus chuir mé in iúl dóibh, dá gcuirfí i bhfeidhm na moltaí atá i míreanna 4, 5, 6 agus 7 de thuarascáil DKM san iarthar, gur bhuille marfach a bheadh ann. Léifidh mé amach Recommendation No. 5, daoibh mar taispeánann sé freisin cé chomh dona is atá cúrsaí. Deir an moladh seo: "There should be no differential rates of grants in the different regions of the country". Is ar éigean a chreid mé go bhféadfadh a leithéid a bheith ann ach tá sé sin molta i dtuarascáil DKM. Rinneadar achoimre neamhspleách ar "the key aspects of industrial policy". Seo iad na key aspects anois agus tá sé ráite i moladh uimhir a 5: "There shall be no differential rates of grants in different regions of the country".

Is fear ón iarthar tú féin, a LeasChathaoirligh, agus is bean ón Iarthar an tAire Stáit agus an Seanadóir os mo chomhair amach, is as Inis i gContae an Chláir dí. Má ghlacann siadsan leis sin —"that there shall be no differential rates of grant in the different regions of the country — i gcás an iarthair, tá sé chomh maith dúinn dul abhaile agus bás a fháil muid féin chomh maith le iarthar na hÉireann.

An rud atá ag cur faitís orm ná go bhféadfadh daoine teacht ar aghaidh le "key aspects" acu don ghrúpa athbhreithnithe seo agus uaidh sin go dtí an tAire le cur i gníomh. Níl le rá agam ach nach bhfuil sé in-ghlactha ar go leor fáthanna.

Is í moladh uimhir a seacht, dála an scéil, a chuireann iontas agus faitíos ormsa maidir le iarthar na hÉireann:

The industrial development function of Shannon Development and Údarás na Gaeltachta should be subsumed in a new regional structure which would operate in all regions under the overall stewardship of the IDA.

An t-aon tuiscint atá agamsa as an ráiteas sin ná nach bhfuil tuairim dá laghad ag DKM faoi réigiúnachas. Nó céard is ciall le réigiúnachas? Is é Udarás na Gaeltachta an rud is gaire do réigiúnachas atá againn sa tír. An rud atáthar ag iarraidh a dhéanamh anois ná go ndéanfaí an tÚdarás a bhá, "to be subsumed", sin an focal Béarla atá acu air. Is í an chiall le "subsumed" i nGaeilge bhriste mo chuid féin ná go bhfuil siad ag iarraidh é a bhá nó deireadh a chur leis: go mbeadh an IDA i mBaile Átha Cliath i gceannas ar gach réigiún sa tír nó ar aon ghníomhaíocht a bheadh ar bun ag réigiún ar bith. Níl réigiúnachas ar bith ann. Tá deireadh curtha le smaoineamh réigiúnachais nuair atá glactha leis sin. Impím ar an Aire Stáit a chinntiú nach dtarlóidh sé seo agus nach féidir glacadh leis ar aon chúinse.

Táimid ar ár míle dícheall ag iarraidh réigiúnachas a chruthú sa tír seo. Tá an Rialtas agus an Eoraip ag tabhairt tacaíochta dó, agus seo muid anseo ag breathnú ar an Culliton report atá ag moladh gan é a bheith ann. Níl a fhios acu céard tá ar bun ag an láimh chlé thar an láimh dheis. Ní thuigeann siad cá sheasaimid ó thaobh réigiúnachais de.

Léifidh mé abairt eile as an tuarascáil seo ar fhaitíos nach bhfuil sé léite ag cuid de na Comhaltaí, agus ba chóir go mbeimis go léir sa tír, ní amháin san iarthar scannraithe faoi seo:

The policy of urging, cajoling or bribing firms into remote locations should be discontinued, in our view. Ireland is a small country and an estimated 85 per cent of the population lives within feasible commuting distance of the 15 main population centres.

Ní fhaca mé riamh rud chomh damanta, chomh sciúrsálach leis sin. Tá sé in aghaidh forbairt tuaithe agus forbairt pobal tuaithe, ní amháin san iarthar ach in áiteanna eile chomh maith céanna. Dá nglacfaí leis an moladh sin i dtuarascáil Culliton bheadh an tairne deireannach curtha san iarthar. Sin iad na fíricí. Ní mise nó Seanadóir ar bith eile nó Teachta Dála a chum é. Seo moladh ó chomhairleoirí mór-le-rá. Léiríonn sé domsa nach bhfuil tuiscint dá laghad acu ar céard is forbairt tuaithe nó ceard tá i gceist againn maidir le slánú an iarthair nó é a choinneáil beo.

An iontas ar bith é go bhfuil muintir an iarthair ag éirí amach ó thaobh ceist stádas na Sionnaine ag an bpointe seo? An iontas ar bith é go bhfuil siad ag teacht le chéile agus ag rá le Baile Átha Cliath agus leis an Rialtas lár, i gcomhthéacs Culliton, nach bhfuil aon áit againne i bíobia an iarthair do na moltaí seo má íslíonn siad gradam an iarthair. Tá siad anois ag iarraidh deireadh a chur leis an aon seod atá fanta in iarthar na hÉireann, is é sin Aerfort na Sionnaine. Má ghlacann tú leis an tuarascáil seo agus leis an smaoineamh agus an intinn atá ann, tá deireadh le Sionna, tá deireadh leis an iarthar.

Tá pointí an-mhaith sa tuarascáil seo ach mar dhuine a bhfuil cónaí air san iarthar, níl aon bhlas maith den iarthar anseo. Sin an fáth gur scríobh mé ag an Aire agus ag an Taoiseach agus ag an task force ag rá: "It is decentralisation in reverse" a bheadh i gceist dá ndéanfaí a leithéid seo.

Tá sé ceart go leor an rud seo uilig a lochtú ó thaobh an iarthair de ach céard táimid chun a dhéanamh faoi? Níl ach bealach amháin go bhfeictear é domsa ar chaoi ar bith. Tá teipthe go hoscailte ag córas an Stáit ar mhuintir an iarthair agus an tír trí chéile a shlánú. Mar sin níl fanta anois ach réigiúnachas. Tá sé mar oibligeáid ar an Rialtas ligint do mhuintir an iarthair i gceist an réigiúnachais, seo, teacht le chéile agus le cabhair an Rialtais, iad féin a shlánú.

Bhí an Seanadóir Lanigan ag caint faoi cé chomh deacair is a bhí sé tionscail bheaga a thosú le rudaí beaga a thabhairt chun cinn, le fostaíocht a chruthú in áit ar bith in Éirinn gan trácht ar iarthar na tíre nó ar áiteanna amuigh ar imeall na farraige nó gan trácht ar cheantair atá ag éirí níos boichte i aghaidh an lae. Tóg, mar shampla, rud beag ar nós Aer Árainn a shocraigh aer-stráice beag a thógaint i nGaeltacht Chonamara le freastal speisialta a dhéanamh ar Oileáin Árainn. Seirbhís sóisialta é sa chéad áit, agus seirbhís eacnamúil sa tarna háit. Tá Ros Comanách a bhfuil cónaí air i Manchester tar éis trí cheathrú milliún punt dá chuid airgid féin, gan phingin deontais ón Eoraip, a infheistiú in aerstráca beag i gConamara. Críochnaíodh an obair sin i mí Feabhra ach dá mba i mbliana a thug sé faoi bheadh faoiseamh cánach le fáil aige faoi Bhille Airgeadais na bliana seo. Tá súil agam go ndéanfaidh an tAire maolú faoin Bhille don aon aerphort amháin a tógadh anuraidh, an ceann seo i gConamara.

Is í an fhostaíocht is bun faidhbe ag deireadh an lae agus ní mór don tasc fórsa seo agus don Rialtas aghaidh a thabhairt ar an 300,000 duine gan jab. Tá "input" nua ag teastáil maidir le treoraíocht agus tá moltaí fiúntacha ag Fine Gael sa doiciméad nua i leith fostaíochta atá curtha amach acu. Ach ní ansin a gheofar réiteach na faidhbe d'iarthar na hÉireann ach i gcur le chéile réigiúnach, ionas go mbeadh chuile shórt bunaithe sna réigiúin agus cabhair ag teacht ón mBruiséil agus ón Rialtas.

Tá teipthe ar gach iarracht eile go dtí seo agus tá na staitisticí ann lena chruthú. Tá sé de dhualgas orainn gníomhú anseo agus impím ar an Aire Stáit ag an Roinn Tionscail agus Tráchtála amharc géar a dhéanamh ar an tuairisc díchéime agus uimhreacha a ceathair, a cúig agus a seacht a scriosadh amach ar an bpointe; ní dhéanann siad maitheas don iarthar ach a mhalairt.

Tá moladh Uimh. a sé tábhachtach; "The regional industrial policy shall focus on ensuring adequate support infrastructures in our regions." Moladh maith é sin ach an bhfuil an toil pholaitiúil ann chun gníomhú dá réir? An bhfuilfimid sásta airgead a chaitheamh ar an "infrastructure" seo? Tá bóithre an iarthair, idir bhóithre contae agus bóithre bailte i ndrochbhail; níl pingin rua á chaitheamh chun caoi cheart a chur orthu. Ag an am gcéanna molann an doiciméad seo go gcuirfí "adequate support infrastructures" ar fáil i ngach réigiún. Tacaím go hiomlán leis sin ach ní dhéanfar aon dul chun cinn anseo má ghabhann gach pingin a thagann ón Eoraip d'iarthar na hÉireann tríd an rialtas lárnach tar éis Maastricht, mar is amhlaidh anois; ní mar sin a chuirfear feabhas ar na bóithre.

Tá tionscal feirmeoireacht éisc ag blathú san iarthar ach ní mór toradh an tionscail sin a chur ar mhargaí na Mór-roinne. Bíonn na trucanna móra a bhailíonn na héisc i gConamara "in transit" cuid mhaith den am, ag eitilt os cionn na bóithre, chomh mí-réidh agus atáid. D'fhéadfaí obair a thabhairt do mhuintir na háite ag deisiú na mbóithre. Tá acmhainn thábhachtach ag titim as a chéile.

Ní mór don Foras Forbartha Tionscalaíochta treo nua a ghlacadh maidir le hacmhainn nádúrtha, feirmeoireacht éisc, bóithre, turasóireacht, pleanáil, oideachas agus cánacha. Tá na hábhair seo fite fuaite lena chéile agus ní mór a stiúrú a lonnadh sna réigíuin. Faoi láthair tá "subregions" á gceapadh gan éifeacht mar go bhfuil siad freagrach don Roinn Airgeadais i mBaile Atha Claith. Má leantar leis an bpolasaí seo agus moltaí na tuairisce seo a chur i bhfeidhm ní bheidh aon leas ann d'iarthar na hÉireann, ach tuar báis agus díothú, an táirne deiridh i gcónra an iarthair.

Tá muintir an iarthair beo, beathach, an líon acu atá fágtha, agus tá siad sásta gníomhú le Culliton ach an deis a fháil chuige. Tá sprid agus meanma againn fós san iarthar agus tá fonn orainn soláthrú a dhéanamh dúinn féin; theip ar an Stát é a dhéanamh. Taímid sásta aghaidh a thabhairt ar ár ndeacrachtaí agus cuidiú leis an Rialtas. Muna ndeántar amhlaidh ní fhágfar i Maigh Eo, Liatrom agus Conamara ach éanlaithe fiáine, féar ag fás agus tithe bánaithe. Táimid ag druidim sa treo seo faoi láthair agus ag bailiú luais gach bliain. Tiocfaidh tuarasoirí ó Mheiriceá trí aerphort na Sionnaine mar a dhéanann anois ach ní bheidh meas ag turasoirí na Mór-roinne ar an iarthar ach mar chineál pháirc imeartha, gan forbairt nó áitritheoirí ann.

Deirtear sa tuairisc: "An estimated 85 per cent of the population live within feasible commuting distance of the 15 main population centres." Beidh daoine as Contae Ros Comáin agus Maigh Eo ag bailiú isteach chuig cathair na Gaillimhe agus bánófar an t-iarthar má leantar leis seo. Níl mise ag cumadh seo — I am not making it up, tá sé ráite anseo go soiléir. Céard atá ag dul a tharlú do Chaisleán an Bharraigh, d'Inis, Bhéal an Átha, Leitir Ceanainn, Chathair na Mart agus Ros Comáin? Níl aon cheann acu sin sna 15 de bhailte atá molta sa Culliton report. Tá deireadh leo. Sin polasaí oifigiúil a cuireadh ar fáil don Rialtas seo: "The policy of urging and cajoling or bribing firms into remote locations should be discontinued, in our view."

Anois, tá mé ag impí ar an Aire, ar an Rialtas, ar chuile Sheanadóir agus Theachta Dála gan ligean do dhuine ar bith polasaí mar sin a ghníomhú nó a chur i bhfeidhm. Má dhéantar é sin, beidh thiar orainn go ceann i bhfad. Ní bheimidne, muintir an iarthair, in ann seasamh anseo leis an iarthar chun é a chur chun cinn. Ní bheidh ann ach páirc imeartha, páirc spraoi, playground do thurasóirí ón Eoraip má ghlactar leis seo. Táimid ag caint inniu faoi bhrat iarthar na hÉireann, sin Aerfort na Sionna, agus baineann sé go dlúth leis an tuarascáil seo. Mar, má tharlaíonn rud ar bith don aerfort sin, má thugtar cead eitilte thar an tSionainn go Baile Átha Cliath, beimid in ísle bhrí agus ár ndóchas san iarthar caillte. Maidir leis an Culliton report ba cheart aghaidh a thabhairt ar an bhfadhb seo.

Tá an díospóireacht anseo inniu tráthúil go maith mar tá sé i gceist ag an Aire, de réir mar a thuigimse, cinneadh a dhéanamh go luath maidir le haerfort na Sionna. Táimid uilig san iarthar ag impí uifthi an cinneadh ceart a dhéanamh, ach níl ach cinneadh amháin ann agus is é sin stádas an aerfoirt fanacht mar atá sé. Ní raibh sé i gceist agam leanúint ar aghaidh chomh fada seo, ach ní fhéadfainn ach an deis a thapú chun cás an iarthair a chur os comhair an Tí seo, ó thaobh Culliton agus DKM de, mar má leantar leis na polasaithe sin beidh thiar orainn.

Mr. O'Keeffe

This is a time of unprecedented unemployment. Fine Gael has produced its jobs document and the employment forum has been set up within the Oireachtas. None of us has all the answers and this report affords us an opportunity to discuss a number of the issues confronting us in our efforts to stimulate employment. For that reason I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Culliton report today.

Unemployment is rising rapidly and the foremost reason is the age composition of our population. There are 23,000 people coming on to the jobs market every year. It is a mammoth task to create that number of jobs together with trying to make an impact on current unemployment levels.

We must look at the effect of technology and competition and of the UK and US recessions. We have to absorb the return of emigrants who have not found satisfactory employment in the UK and US. Finally, we must look at the lack of employment incentives within the Irish industry structure. I will not put on my Government hat here but will throw out a number of ideas on this issue in the hope that they will stimulate discussion.

The first area I would like to look at is the relationship between the level of employment and PRSI rates. At present employers are legally required to pay 12.5 per cent of wages and salaries up to a maximum of £19,600. The employee pays 6 per cent. The total payment to the State is 18.5 per cent and, whatever way we look at it, this is a form of taxation. Bearing in mind the levels of unemployment, we must ask whether this tax on employment should continue when unemployment costs the State more in benefits and often pushes people into the black economy. Why should the heaviest burden be attached to the lower paid or possibly the less skilled employment area? The average weekly industrial wage is about £210, or £10,900 per annum. Every employer has to pay a weekly tax of £26 on gross wages of £210, £236 in all. The employer also provides the State with a bookkeeping and collection service by making PRSI and PAYE deductions and passing these over to the State.

It could be argued that Irish PRSI levels are low when compared to other European countries, but other European countries enjoy higher employment levels. It might also be argued that PRSI deductions are required to fund the social welfare system, that is unemployment, retirement and health benefits, etc. This is nonsensical given that PRSI and PAYE inflows to the Exchequer cannot be separated from each other or from other taxes such as VAT or excise duties. Corporation tax is levied to cover incentives, grants and other supports for industry, such as the IDA, SFADCo, CTT and Bord Fáilte. As unemployment rises, should there be a balance between the rate of PRSI levied and the cost of unemployment? PRSI rates are part of an overall taxation policy. It is revealing that there is no taxation of business assets annually, while investment often takes place at the expense of employment expansion except in cases of real expansion and sales. Admittedly technology and competition force pace on certain industrial investments, but new investment will generally improve profitability and depreciation deductions are subject to a low tax rate of 10 per cent.

A suggestion which could balance capital versus labour incentives would be to allow certain firms to charge double the wage bill for tax computation purposes for an affirmed period, like rental charges in designated areas. I am homing in on the service industry now; PRSI levies are minor matters in larger firms because of the low proportion of total cost devoted to wages and salaries. Greencore had a turnover of £271.4 million last year, but staff costs amounted to only £34.1 million, 12.5 per cent of turnover or 13.6 per cent of total costs. Smaller firms tend to be more labour intensive. It has been widely suggested that Ireland needs many more small firms, in other words, start small and then growth can follow normally. I suggest, therefore, that PRSI payments have a far greater relevance to profitability, cash flow and growth in the small firm sector of the economy because for taking on people entrepreneurs and small family firms are being penalised by a tax of 12½ per cent on the payroll when, in fact, they should be encouraged as they are taking a burden off the State.

It is relevant, therefore, to point out that FÁS introduced a scheme recently where the employer gets £55 per week for 18 months for taking on extra employees who have been FÁS trained. This is a step in the right direction and it should be encouraged. But in service industries the relevance of employment costs can be much higher than in the manufacturing sector and something should be done to alleviate that, given the scope and potential there is in that sector.

Let me give one further example in that area. If you take a simple statistic, the 12½ per cent represents one-eighth, if there were no PRSI payments by a small firm in the service sector in theory that firm should be able to afford to take eight people on to the payroll, in other words, the firm would then end up at the end of the year having a hundred and eight on the pay roll as against 100. I mention this because I think this is a time when it is worth looking at the disincentive there is to employment and the major scope that exists within the services sector for growth and for meaningful employment.

Getting back to Culliton, I would like to make a few points. Obviously anybody looking at the industrial make-up of this country and the various agencies we have one could say that rationalisation is absolutely necessary. When you talk about the IDA, Údaras, Bord Fáilte and the Irish Trade Board you would say we have proliferation and surely some rationalisation is necessary. You could add to that the local authorities, who are development authorities.

I would like to deal for a minute, with the lack of streamlining there is between the IDA and the local authorities. Local authorities have built up, for very good reasons and with a lot of commonsense, landbanks which were designated for industrial development. By and large, the experience is that while the IDA have an advance factory and while they have land, they will obviously give preference to that particular advance factory or, indeed, the land. A number of years ago we had the ridiculous situation where the IDA had land on one side and the local authority had land on the other. The local authority said: "We will give it to you for £20,000 an acre". The IDA heard this and they said: "We will give it to you for £15,000 an acre". The two were actually in competition with each other. Obviously streamlining in that area needs to be carried out and we would want to redefine the role of the local authority.

Have they a developmental role in terms of industry? If they have, it should be clearly specified and the IDA should be given a specific undertaking to take note of that and work within it. The other area, of course, between local authorities and the IDA is the matter of development plans. Every county has one, every city has one, and each and every one of them will have job targets contained within it. I often wonder do we take the figures out of the air. I will give an example of the Cork county development plan over the last six years. The target was set but at the end of the time only one-third of the jobs envisaged had been provided. How realistic is it? How often do the IDA and the local authorities come together to monitor progress in terms of meeting those targets and putting employment into the areas specified in the particular development plan and the type of industry that has been specified?

The IDA have a major problem in creating employment at present. Last year was a very difficult year. They had a target of 13,000 jobs and they created 12,439 jobs, 561 jobs fewer than had been anticipated. I will give a couple of examples. If you take the food sector I understand that 1,200 jobs were created last year but because of rationalisation there was a net loss of 160 jobs. The same is true in the electronic and electrical sectors. Surely we would need to be asking ourselves what is the point of creating jobs and yet finishing up at the end of the day losing more in other sectors? We should be looking at a system whereby help can be given to firms with advice and training, and management structures put in place to ensure that jobs are maintained rather than having to pay people through the social welfare system.

I would also like to look at training and to say that I agree totally with the Culliton report when it says that employers should be more involved in the provision of training. One of the areas in which we have been remiss is that there has been far too little emphasis on management training, which is a most important element. Unless we have proper management how can companies grow, how can there be foresight, how can there be proper planning? We have to ensure that management training is part and parcel of any package that is put in place. It is only right that the emphasis should be put back on the employer because the employer will be the benefactor at the end of the day. Unfortunately, over the years we have built up a grant mentality with regard to training, whether it be at a low base level or at management level. By and large, nobody in firms undertook training unless there was a grant available for doing so. That, of course, is foolhardy given that the company with proper in-house training is going to grow and continue to grow; it is going to increase its market share and at the end of the day increase employment and increase profitability. Therefore, training should be considered a normal business investment, self-supporting rather than based on the grant mentality.

I would also like to have a look at the idea of breaking up the IDA into two separate entities whereby you would have inward investment on the one side and you would have an emphasis on indigenous industry on the other. I suggest that the recommendation that grants to Irish industry be replaced by equity holding is open to question because if you think back we recently abolished the State venture capital company NAD-CORP on the basis that they were not making progress. Now we have a suggestion from Culliton saying that we should have a myriad of small State holdings which would be expensive to administer and administratively be cumbersome. Can you envisage the State having pickings and shares in small companies all over the country and the difficulty there would be in managing those? I would say this is at odds with the thinking at the moment and the thrust of the report towards enterprise and the private sector in particular.

Some of the comments on agencies also appear to be slightly loose. For example, in recommending that Údarás na Gaeltachta become a regional arm of a new indigenous agency, Culliton and the group take absolutely no account of the fact that this organisation has a much wider social, cultural and linguistic brief. No reference is made to our development agencies, such as the tourist board, nor indeed the new rural development programme.

On the other hand the group's recommendations may be criticised for the fact that, while undoubtedly their proposals are radical in some ways, in many instances they are not radical enough. It is very surprising for a review group is composed almost exclusively of industrialists that an awful lot of their energy appears to be focused on the re-organisation of the State industrial agencies. I look at the splitting of the IDA itself and I ask myself is this recommendation actually radical? How much difference is there between two separate organisations with a joint board, as suggested in the report, and the existing situation with the IDA which has an overseas marketing division and separate divisions dealing with Irish industry.

You could leave aside the question of selling Ireland as a location for inward investment, and the group have suggested that grants to industry by gradually phased out and that hitherto free or cheap advisory technical services gradually be charged for on a commercial basis. I agree with that. I think that it is about time that happened. It is good for companies. The laid back mentality will go out of existence. If they have to pay for services they will appreciate them all the more and they will make demands on those who are providing such services to ensure that they are top class.

I think it is fair to say that some of the functions they are talking about might be performed by the private sector. They could be performed, if necessary, on Government contract, that is, taking equity stakes in Irish industry could be subcontracted out to financial institutions. The report states that public entities provide many of the services which in other countries are performed by industry associations, but in this area the report itself does not follow through the logic of its argument on the particular topic.

May I also for a minute home in on the food industry to say that I welcome rationalisation in the food industry and the agri-business sector? It is quite extraordinary, when we look at our natural resources and when we pinpoint the agri-sector and the food sector as a major agency for growth, development and employment, that last year we had a decline of 160 jobs overall, even though 1,416 new jobs were created.

I welcome the call for a national plan fully integrated into the agricultural sector and also the radical changes proposed in the report, because I think at present it is quite extraordinary that the food sector should cut across the boundaries of various Departments and ten agencies. Surely that will tell you that streamlining is needed. Whether you should put the marketing and the planning into the Department of Agriculture and Food is a debatable point. I certainly think that by and large Departments are rigid, but certainly it has to be put into some agency where full responsibility is given to that particular department, section or whatever to ensure that the major growth which can come in this area will be achieved.

It seems ridiculous that in this country, where we have quality foods, we are importing a significant amount of foodstuffs. We should be looking abroad for investment in the food sector in Ireland. That would have a twofold effect, because if we can get large groups to take an interest in development, in joint ventures or otherwise in this country, then on the one hand you are creating employment and on the other you will have external companies coming in from abroad having an attachment to markets out there that we may not yet have penetrated. From that point of view, therefore, I would strongly urge streamlining and rationalisation in this particular sector.

The IDA have been homing in on particular sectors for some period of time and it appears that the pharmaceutical sector, the electronic sector, the various health care products and the financial services will give dividends. I would like to take the opportunity today to make mention of Apple Computers in Cork. I thought it rather distressing to read an article in the Cork Examiner today which was highly critical of multinational companies and the level of investment they have in Ireland, which was accusing them of coming in, taking the goodies and getting out as fast as they can. I think that is extremely unfair to the large number of multinational firms who are operating within this country and I think it is especially unfair to Apple Computers in Cork, who have been a model company and who have been up to now providing in excess of 1,000 jobs, good quality employment for graduates and for operators on the ground floor. Obviously, if a firm can produce circuit boards in Singapore for £84 as against £160 in Cork, you cannot really blame the company for looking elsewhere. I think that rather than blaming them we should look at our cost structure in Ireland. What is good about Apple — and the decision has not yet been taken — is that they have put a £4.8 million investment into the factory. As I understand it, what is now being said is that if they do make a decision to take those jobs abroad, the impact may be a lot less severe than is feared, given that we may get a lot more high tech jobs in this factory than have been there heretofore. Over the years they have praised the workforce in Cork as being highly efficient. They say that the operation in Cork is the hub of their European organisation and they see growth stemming from it. I would like at this time therefore to ask people to temper their criticism of companies like that and to allow them and those people who are negotiating with them to come up with a package which will in the long run create far more sustainable, long term jobs in the research and development area.

I cannot agree with the remarks in the Culliton report relating to elitism and the educational system in Ireland and asserting that there is not enough emphasis on technical, scientific and commercial subjects. Any review I have seen on educational and curriculum trends and demand for courses show clearly that there has been a major decline in the proportion of people taking up arts and humanities, subjects like history, geography, art and music, and there has been a massive takeup in those opting for the technical, scientific and commercial subjects.

It is plain to see that major growth has taken place in our universities and regional colleges and that there has been a major shift of emphasis from the humanities into the scientific, technical and commercial subjects. Long may this continue. The reason is that the jobs are there. While there is a market and people see that there are jobs in those sectors the likelihood is that students will follow that market. My view is that over the next ten years the demand and growth in those sectors will be more emphasised than at present. I take issue with the comments on elitism and education in the report.

Mr. Manning

I would like to compliment Senator O'Keeffe on a very thoughtful and interesting contribution. There was not a great deal in what he said with which I could disagree and I do not think any objective person looking at the situation would disagree with his analysis.

I would like to say a few words about the Culliton report. I have known Jim Culliton over a number of years and had the privilege of working with him on the president's development council at University College, Dublin where he was responsible for the thinking and the action behind many of the innovations that transformed the campus and the university in recent years under the presidency of Dr. Patrick Masterson. My impression then of Mr. Jim Culliton was that he was a man of enormous thoughtfulness, of the sort of patriotism this country needs in its industrialists. A person of great commitment to this country, he is prepared to put the fruits of his considerable experience and great success in industry to the benefit of the public as he did when he was chairman of the RTE authority and, most notably, in the compiling of what has become known as the Culliton report. Knowing Mr. Culliton nobody need be surprised that the report is a very tough one which prescribes a great number of unpalatable and difficult measures to be adopted and which need not be just the political will but a broad measure of consensus to see them implemented.

It is a depressing fact of political life, and a depressing reality, that as we are now into what all of us would sadly say is a time of political instability with no great certainty as to when the next election will take place — the Government could run their full course but most of us do not think they will — it is unlikely that many of the measures prescribed in Culliton will see the light of day between now and the next election. There is a danger that the Culliton report will find its way on to the shelf, the dust will gather on it and whatever soft options are in it will be taken down and trotted out but the very tough options on a whole range of issues will be ignored. It is interesting to hear people talk about the Culliton report as if it was some easy panacea for all the problems we face in the creation of jobs. Unfortunately, I suspect that as people read the Culliton report they will discover that there is a great deal in it that is very unpalatable.

I wish to concentrate on the recent proposals by my party on job creation. This report, which was prepared largely by Deputy Richard Bruton, the director of policy, had an input from all members of the Front Bench and was knocked into shape finally by the party leader, Deputy John Bruton. Already it has been acclaimed by sober-headed and, indeed, sober economists — there is not any other sort of economist other than a sober economist——

Mr. Wright

Are they one-handed or two-handed?

Mr. Manning

There is a two-handed economist, there is a Doheny and Nesbitt School of Economics but generally economists are slow to hand out either praise or encouragement especially to the efforts of politicians. I often thought that maybe being an economist would have been very easy. The profession has much to recommend it and economists are rarely called upon to take responsibility for the cures they prescribe. They can always, in a very convincing way, say, "had circumstances been different", "it was not our fault; it was somebody else's fault", "circumstances changed" and that they were merely prescribing within one set of parameters. The economists who examined this document with some care saw it as a very significant contribution to the real problem of this country.

I wish to concentrate on what that document says about employment. It states that to genuinely make employment a top priority means we must confront some very deep rooted barriers to enterprise. A dependency culture has grown up where people tend to ask what State grant is available rather than how their initiative can make the venture succeed. The State has encouraged caution and a retreat to safety, the safety and status of owning property, of having an academic badge, of holding down a pensionable job or owning a restricted licence to a trade or a profession. While good in themselves, these have become over-valued in Ireland to the detriment of enterprise.

The range and extent of State support to industry has often done more to foster a culture of dependency in our firms than to establish enterprises capable of staking out a strong position in European markets. A tendency has developed of people asking what State grant is available rather than how their initiative can make the structure succeed. The potential of women in business has not been fully tapped and all of this is hostile to a high employment economy where in the normal course taking risks, matching and beating vigorous competition, innovation and enjoying the profits of successful enterprise are the hallmarks of success.

Well intentioned politicians, and most politicians and are well intentioned have added layer upon layer to our system of tax, social welfare, grants, licences and schemes. While many of these proposals had merit in their day, they have unwittingly ended up entangling people in poverty traps and encouraging scarce creative talents into the pursuit of tax effective spending plans not into robust business enterprises. It is vital that as a country we realise we are now in a new development phase where a very different approach is needed to confront our problems. Answers rooted in the fifties and sixties will no longer suffice. Our traditional efforts to industrialise have created a dual economy. Foreign industry put down few roots and had few linkages with the indigenous economy but what it did do was to create oases of high output, high wages and high profit in an otherwise sluggish economy. Most if its materials were imported, the profits were ex-patriated and the cost centres of research, development and marketing were seldom brought to the low tax Irish location.

On the other hand, indigenous firms have languished. Some, but far too few, reaching a certain threshold of success but few really breaking into the enormous markets at our doorstep. Membership of the European Community, though opening up competition has not shaken the prevailing climate. The support system of the European Community has often created new shelters for dependency. Our food industry, about which so many Senators have spoken, has been subverted by the ease of selling into EC cold storage. Our public investment and training programmes have become vehicles for staking out our share of EC money rather than being engines for the generation of economic success.

Sitting suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 2 p.m.

An Cathaoirleach

I am sorry the Limerick delegation have to leave because I am sure they would hear a stunning performance from Senator Manning. I call Senator Manning.

Mr. Manning

I apologise for being slightly late. Before the Adjournment we had been talking about the contribution to the jobs debate made in the Fine Gael policy proposals published this week. I would like to take up where I left off. If we are to tackle the jobs crisis we must adopt a radically different strategy. We need to encourage enterprise at every level in order to open up opportunities. We need to strip away unnecessary regulations and to build on our strengths of comparative advantage. We need to reward excellence, to experiment and to tolerate the occasional inevitable failures. By doing that we hope to pave the way to a genuine recovery.

There is a great deal of discussion about the role of the State in promoting industrial development and the creation of jobs. It is strongly argued that State policy must take the lead in breaking the new ground I have outlined. Its role must be to accelerate adaptation and change and not to slow it down. It must spend less, but to better effect. Policy formation must be open, transparent and evenhanded in its implementation. We believe that the change of direction will mean radical changes in taxation; it will mean radical changes in the social support systems, in the grant giving agencies and in the State commercial bodies. It means, as Culliton has pointed out — although we would differ in many respects with the Culliton proposals — changes in the areas of educational and training systems and, perhaps most crucially of all, in the whole range of competition and competitive policy. I believe that the present Government have fostered a sense of fatalism about employment and emigration. Great hopes were held out in the period prior to 1987 that the Fianna Fáil Party, which were then seeking to form a Government, would bring an end to the emigration which was a haemorrhage at that stage and would also help to bring an end to the huge unemployment queues. We all remember that these featured very dramatically on the large billboard posters around the country at that time. Since they assumed office we have been told, over and over again, that emigration is in a sense a good thing, a natural safety valve, and that unemployment, given our birth rate and our demographic patterns, is almost inevitable. We believe that this fatalistic thinking has paralysed the case for action and reform. This country is capable of far better if it harnesses all its efforts in the task of creating employment.

Policies that genuinely make jobs top priority can transform our performance. We plan a radical programme of action within a fixed period. At the heart of this is a jobs Bill, which would short-circuit the endless bureaucratic delays of drafting and passing legislation in the several areas where change is necessary.

In Ireland we have over the years constructed very elaborate State agencies with large budgets to support and carry out activities which business people do for themselves in other countries. This interventionist approach reached its highest point in the period 1977-79 when we had a programme of massive State borrowing intended to launch the country along the path of sustained economic growth. Of course, State help was as necessary then as it is today, but it was carried too far and it very nearly broke the country. The Culliton report clearly shows how the £4,000 million sunk in industrial support in the eighties failed to produce either jobs or strong indigenous firms with capacity to penetrate successfully into the European markets.

We are now entering a new development phase in the industrial history of this country. That new development phase demands a new approach. The first priority is that the Government must properly manage the activities that are directly in their control, specifically they must achieve the necessary stability in fiscal matters to give business confidence. This can only be done with multi-annual budgeting and a clear long term programme of tax reform. Too often in the past new tax and spending schemes were introduced with their low initial costs disguising the very substantial long term implications for the taxpayer. This is not acceptable or responsible budgeting. This was a major feature of this year's budget, which has stored up problems for the future in tax and in pay commitments. This type of budgeting is simply not being honest with the electorate.

The Government must concentrate on maintaining the competitiveness of business costs that are provided directly by the State sector. The approach to business enterprise by the Government must change. The new approach which we propose involves, among its aspects, setting measurable targets for reduction in the costs of business services provided by the State. It involves introducing competition in areas that have traditionally been State monopolies. Where there is a single national distribution network in relation to electricity, gas or telecommunications, there must be open access for all service suppliers, subject to an equitable fee for the cost of utilisation. We want some element of private ownership introduced into commercial State enterprises, and in some cases where it is in the public interest we want to see them sold off completely. A rigorous procedure must be put in place to protect the public interest when assets are being sold off. We have seen, only too sadly, in the past year that the absence of such procedures can do great damage to a process which in itself can be desirable in the public interest. We believe that commercial State bodies must be given a proper commercial mandate requiring Government to pay separately for any social obligations imposed to limit the sphere of political interference and to introduce a new system for appointing board members.

There must be a strengthening regulation by establishing a body, along the lines of the US Utility Commission, which would act independently of both the enterprise and the politicians, with a mandate to first, protect the rights of those trading with a monopoly supplier; second, to monitor cost competiveness with European competitors; and, third, to vet decisions on price increases.

We believe that this new approach could transform the performance of these companies, which are well short at the moment of their dynamic potential. We believe that many of these companies have been held back, in part by political interference that has at times resulted in foolish investment in doomed projects — and they are all around us to see. They have been held back by political selection of board members for reasons unconnected to their ability to enhance the performance of the enterprise. They have been held back by constraints on access to capital to develop their business, which they will never get from a cash-starved Government, unable or unwilling to take a sufficiently long view to invest in the company's future.

It is our belief that monopoly State companies have been sheltered because Ireland has never developed a proper regulatory framework which would create market-like pressures for competitiveness despite being monopolies in structure. The major commercial State companies have developed an excessive influence over Government policy. The distinction between framing national policy for transport, energy and communication must be clearly independent from the business task of running an effective State enterprise in these sectors. We believe this new approach will make the State sector more commercial, more conscious of customer needs and more outward looking in seeking potential for new business. My party believe that in this framework the State sector will be more likely to carve out new employment opportunities for themselves, or in joint ventures, and release much of the frustrated potential of their very talented workforces.

In this approach we believe that merely changing ownership of bodies of itself cannot create competition. It cannot guarantee that customer rights will be defended. It cannot guarantee that social objectives will be met. This approach separates out these issues from the question of ownership and confronts them directly. However, we also recognise the clear advantages in bringing about a change in ownership. This can reduce State debt and the need to hand over the total revenue from income tax to pay its interest. It gives employees and the public a direct share and interest in the success of the company. It is a spur to better performance and to efficiency, which does not exist at present in a sheltered State environment.

We believe also that if we are to succeed in creating jobs, greater emphasis on performance is also essential in the public service. In the near future we will be publishing details of proposals to lift performance in the public service. These will include proposals that all higher posts in the public service will be filled by open competition under criteria which will ensure that people from outside have a fair chance of selection. We propose that there should be a strong independent audit agency, with a clear value for money mandate, which would evaluate performance of both central and local Government and that the results of its work be published. We will be proposing a system of competitive contracting for specific areas of the public service, opening up the opportunity for other public service providers and the private sector to bid for contracts. Opportunity for employment in the public service will also be freed up by introducing a programme for early retirement and by removing the obstacles to filling jobs on a job-sharing basis.

It is our belief that the greater emphasis on competition must also expand into the rest of the economy. The present presumption in our laws against anti-competitive practices must be vigorously enforced throughout the trades and professions. Derogation from competition law, such as that protecting the insurance industry, should not be preserved. The Competition Act should be urgently amended to deal with the recent High Court interpretation which deemed it did not apply to certain State enterprises. We have advocated this in the course of a whole range of recent debates. We believe that where there are existing restrictive licences or regulations the onus must be placed on the sponsoring Departments to prove that these restrictions continue to be in the public interest. The purpose of restrictive licensing arrangement should be to ensure that quality standards are reached and maintained. Licences should not themselves become saleable assets. Clearly, change in licensing arrangements must recognise that existing licences have attained an asset value.

Similarly, there should be a general ban on restrictions in advertising on the use of scale fees, even as a guideline, on self-regulation of entry into a trade or profession. Only if the restrictions can be shown to be clearly in the public interest would they remain. A necessary companion to strong competition is a satisfactory system for resolving claims of injury by consumers or others. At present consumers find it too difficult to get redress, while many businesses are facing mounting costs due to litigation. Better mechanisms are needed for dealing with consumer, public and employee liability.

Within our system, as most of us know, there are crucial biases against providing extra employment and there are crucial issues at the heart of the task of making jobs a top priority. There is a stark contrast between Ireland, where 80 per cent of extra output went in higher remuneration to those at work and only 20 per cent to new jobs, and the US where these ratios were almost reversed. We must look at what causes this problem. These causes include the method of determining pay, fees and terms of employment in the public and private sectors. They include the size of the tax wedge between gross and net pay. They include the relationship between net pay from work and the combined benefits available when out of work.

We would like to have discussions with the social partners to examine whether present methods of pay negotiation in the public and private sectors give sufficient emphasis to the possibility of achieving more employment instead of more pay. We would like to examine whether some elements of labour law may be self-defeating and undermining employment opportunities, in the light of the evidence that many large employers are now bypassing this legislation and taking on people on short term contracts with limited protection and very few possibilities for advancement. For this reason we emphasise the importance of participation by the unemployed in any policy-making process that may take place. Their voice must be heard on issues of pay negotiation and employment terms. They must be heard just as loudly, and more urgently, than the voices of the organised who are lucky enough to be in work.

I stressed at the outset the growth of the dependency culture and the growth of the grant culture here. We believe that this culture must be changed, that the State's approach to business must be extensively transformed. State financial support must be rolled back and replaced by private finance in an orderly fashion. Indeed, the experts who examined the problem agree that the State agencies for industrial support must refocus their work. The traditional package of supports — tax incentives, free or subsidised training, education services and substantial grants for fixed investment — have been expensive to the taxpayer. They have operated mainly to the benefit of foreign industry. They have not come to grips with the deficiencies in Irish firms.

The key functions on which the State should concentrate its efforts are first, to help Irish firms identify their weaknesses and act as a catalyst to fill these defects, second, to foster initiative by regions, by chambers of commerce and by industrial associations to promote employment and business success in their areas and, third, to act as a catalyst to selective sectoral development bringing together dispersed efforts helping to remove obstacles and provide target incentives. We have many specific proposals on this which we will make available in the coming weeks.

We believe also that there should be a new focus on business firms. To be successful a firm must create and sustain some competitive advantage over its rivals. This can be in key costs, better techniques, greater innovation, a better service and better marketing. This edge is not determined by Government or State agencies; it is determined and sustained by the businesses themselves. Any attempt to target growth sectors which ignores this fundamental point and the self-dependence of the firm themselves, is doomed to failure.

We believe the State should focus its support on strengthening the capabilities of firms in four key factors necessary for successful business; identifying and meeting the market opportunity; helping to develop entrepreneurial and management abilities, training and education; motivation and commitment and helping companies to update their production techniques, technology and research and, finally, in financial and physical resources.

The preparation of plans for grants and loan approval has not succeeded in developing the necessary strategic thinking in the majority of indigenous firms. The new focus on effort must be to help develop the capabilities of individaul firms, to overcome deficiencies and to create and sustain a competitive advantage; must be firm driven, not arm's length subsidies of certain business costs.

In place of grants the agencies should operate executive placement or secondment programmes, they should facilitate franchise arrangements, they should identify possible venture capital partners, they should identify consultants to fill gaps in marketing expertise and so forth, and they should design focused training programmes. In all cases the aim will be that the firms will predominantly pay for the service required, at least after initial seed finance. The agencies should run a brokering service to provide this help to firms. This approach will build on the existing success of company development plans in bringing strategic thinking into the decisions of small firms. Most of the detailed expertise needed would be contracted into the firm from outside State agencies.

Finally, State agencies should also aim to collect and disseminate information about the overseas marketplace and expose Irish firms to the information available from being close to the marketplace in a way that has not happened up to now. The handicap of peripherality is far greater than the tangible ones of distance and transport costs. In a way that has not happened up to now and in their new role our agencies must succeed in bringing the realities, in remedying the consequences of our peripheral location which frequently is more real in terms of psychology and thinking than in terms of transport costs.

Mr. Mooney

Like speakers on all sides of the House I welcome this report which is significant in the context of our continuing development as a trading nation. It is such a comprehensive report that inevitably it would be impossible to go through its detailed recommendations, and I do not propose to do so. I will concentrate on one or two areas of the report which are of particular relevance to my part of the country and also to the education area, in which I have some expertise as a long standing member of a local education authority.

However, it is important to preface my remarks by referring to the report. The report states that a time for change is a time to realise that Governments on their own cannot provide us with permanent secure jobs and a growing standard of living. That theme has been picked up by a number of speakers, notably my colleague, Senator Manning, who in his interesting and detailed analysis of our industrial position, vis-a-vis the rest of Europe and the world made this point repeatedly. I am not sure if it is fair to point the finger at certain sections of the population and accuse them of a dependency culture as if they are, in a sense voluntarily encouraging a dependency culture. Those of us who come from areas where there is rural population decline poor infrastructure and low or negligible industrial bases will testify that the people who have been eking out a living for generations in that type of environment without little encouragement inevitably find they have no option but to pursue Government subsidies and, in the last two decades, European subsidies. There are inequalities in our society which are not confined to an urban-rural divide which are frequently talked about by economists and social commentators; I believe there is a rural-rural divide. Indeed, that has been identified throughout Europe generally, but more so in Ireland where there are not just disadvantaged areas but severely disadvantaged areas. I will deal later with the impact of Structural Funding on Ireland and the experiences in the west and north-west. Obviously, if one has been eking out a living over a long period on poor land with all the other disadvantages, it is inevitable that one will look to the Government of the day for help.

However, I will try to be positive and deal with the them which seems to be running through the Culliton report — the fact that we are entering a decade of opportunity and are on the brink of substantial and significant changes in the way we organise ourselves as a nation and in our relationship with the rest of Europe and the world. This House will have an opportunity next week to debate in more detail the implications of European Union and the impact it will have on Ireland's social and economic difficulties.

The central theme of the Culliton report is directed towards tax reform I have always believed that the Government should grasp the nettle on this. When the Taoiseach, Deputy Reynolds, became Minister for Finance, coming as he did from an entreprenurial background, he believed — and put into practice his reliefs in the area of tax reform — that by reducing tax for the majority it would not endanger Exchequer receipts but, would probably generate more tax receipts because of increased economic activity. I remember having brief discussions with him on his philosophy in this and he often made the point that the traditional view in the Department of Finance that they should hold on to what they have and that concessions in the area of tax reform would endanger Exchequer receipts and would lead to a lower tax take. Experience over the last few years had proved that the shift from direct to indirect tax has been taking place, the Exchequer returns and tax receipts have been very buoyant and that the economic activity generated by the Government's economic policy, between 1987 and 1990 particularly, proved that people, if given an incentive to work through reduced taxation would, in turn, recycle that money into the economy to the benefit of all.

The main recommendations on taxation refer to a fundamental programme of reform. They make the point, in a more detailed submission on tax reform, that there was a need to reduce the high marginal rates of tax. I remember seeing a quote from Neil Kinnock, the leader of the British Labour Party, in a preelection campaign speech last year in which he talked about the high rates of marginal tax that had operated in Great Britain in the seventies. Upwards of 90 per cent of a person's income could be taken in tax at a particular level, depending on how much that person was earning. The essence of it was that anybody who was paying 90 per cent tax on his income was mad. He said that anybody who paid 50 per cent of his income on tax was equally mad. We are on a high marginal tax of 48 per cent.

It is obvious to everybody that the tax rates are acting as a disincentive to developing an entrepreneurial culture as people have, as their priority, keeping body and soul together. It certainly does not give them much of an opportunity to be turning their skills towards generating more money when they know that at the end of the day the Government are going to take it from them. I would like, however, to record and acknowledge the determined effort that this Government and the previous Government have been making since 1987 to bring our tax rates more in line with those of some of our European partners, to substantially reduce the tax burden on the hard pressed PAYE workers and to spread the tax burden in a more equitable fashion.

Within the Culliton report there are a number of references to the substantial sums of money being earned by foreign companies and then expatriated abroad. This Government were the first to move in attempting to claw back some of the money that had been going out of the country over the last 20 years as a result of a very liberal export tax relief scheme. The benefits of that are now beginning to flow towards the Exchequer. I do not want to dwell too much on the taxation area other than to add my voice to the voices of many others by saying that the Government, having initiated this programme of tax reform, will not feel as self-inhibited as a result of the downturn in the world economy. In the next budget we can look forward to an even more significant reform of the taxation system.

I would like to dwell on infrastructural development and the recommendations on infrastructure generally contained in the report. The report states that the increased investment momentum on road improvements should be maintained, concentrating on the roads that give the highest economic return per pound spent. I would have some qualms about fully endorsing that view. It seems to suggest that only those areas of the country which are currently operating a high economic return per pound spent are the ones on which further development should take place. There is within this philosophy a lack of appreciation of the disparities that are contained within this island. I referred to them briefly earlier. For someone like me, and many of my people who come from Leitrim, the north-west and the west of Ireland who have occasion to travel extensively around this country, such travel is sometimes a source of frustration. I do not wish to be accused of envy or begrudgery. Such people are sometimes exasperated when travelling through the rich fertile lands of the south-east, or in the Golden Vale, along roads which undoubtedly do need some improvements. There are road arteries which in their original state were vastly superior to many roads that I travel over in my part of the country. People witness substantial sums of European money being pumped into upgrading and widening those roads or removing bends. There is often a sign: "This project is financed by money from the European Structural Funds".

I will return to my own part of the country where the biggest single problem that I have faced since becoming an elected member of Leitrim County Council last summer is the state of the roads. It is difficult sometimes to accept the criteria that has obviously been used by the Department of Finance to decide where this scarce resource of the European Structural Funds money is to be spent. It goes back to a view which is now being widely voiced throughout the west and which applies to other regions of the country as well. The Department of Finance have for too long, certainly since Structural Funds came onstream, adopted an attitude of: "We have the money. Keep your hands off it and we will decide where it is to be spent". Perhaps the difficulty lies in the fact that Ireland as a whole is treated in European terms as a disadvantaged region. When that blanket statement is made it ignores the internal disparities which I have touched on, especially and specifically in the area of infrastructural development.

I welcome the campaign to decentralise Structural Funds money. European money should flow through the Department of Finance, certainly, but the iron grip which the Department have held on this money in the area of decision making and of prioritising where it goes must be relaxed. One way of doing this is for the Government to implement and enact, by regulations, sections of the Local Government (Reform) Act which we debated in this House last year, specifically as it applies to the setting up of regional authorities. I can understand fully the reluctance of the Government in the present economic climate to push ahead with substantial sections of this Bill on the basis that it would be an intolerable burden on the Exchequer. If the philosophy behind the introduction of the legislation was to decentralise and to bring more and more power down to the people at the lowest level, it somehow seems illogical that the Government should pause halfway through that reform programme and drag their feet on implementing that section of the Local Government (Reform) Act which would permit the creation of regional authorities throughout the country. I know that in the north-west and the west particularly, if there was such a regional authority, there would be a tremendous burst of creativity among the elected councillors, non-elected officials of local authorities, community groups and those who have been working so hard to try to improve their lot in life.

The buzz word in Europe for the last couple of years has been "subsidiarity". This means the devolution of as much power as possible away from the centre — the centre in this instance being Brussels — down to member states, and from there down to the regions. John Hume, who has become something of the darling of the Save the West circuit over the last couple of months, has been hammering home this theme ad nauseam. He has emphasised that we are entering into a Europe of the regions, that the concept of the nation State is dead, and that we in this country should wake up to that fact. I am not so sure that I would agree in total with Mr. Hume, but I appreciate the perspective from which he speaks coming as he does from an economically disadvantaged part of Derry, the north-west. He is, I suppose, a politician without a nation. By “without” I mean in the sense of being outside the nation in the Six Counties. He has concentrated his undoubted talents in developing Derry, and its hinterland, as a region whereas in the Twenty-six Counties operating as we do as a nation state, we should not throw away lightly that concept despite the growing development towards an integrated Europe. Indeed, the whole theme of European integration is that it is a Europe of individual states with their cultures and tradition rather than an amalgam that leads to a federation in which national identities are subsumed. I do not think we would agree to that type of development if we were asked.

I wish to emphasise the importance of creating prosperity because there is none in my own county. It is important to create prosperity and the proper economic environment in which we can compete fairly, first within Ireland and, second, within Europe. It is essential for our future well-being in the west that we are given a greater say over our affairs than hitherto. It is long past time when Dublin continued to dictate to the rest of the country. We have a bright, well educated, highly articulate population who are not prepared to accept the ways of the past. They are no longer prepared to accept that if that is the way it was done so should it continue. They are no longer prepared to accept the diktat of a concept they see as remote. How much more remote is Brussels going to be if we believe Dublin to be remote to our interests? Therefore, I plead with the Government to give serious and active consideration to the creation of a regional authority structure, so that we can grasp the opportunities to decide for ourselves, and for the future, the priorities, not as they are seen from Merrion Street.

On the recommendations on infrastructure, the authors conclude that the perception that Structural Funds represent in some way "free money from Brussels" must be firmly rejected and the uses to which the funds are put must be subjected to the strongest possible evaluation. They also state:

The regulations governing the Structural Funds have been too narrowly defined. For the next round of Structural Funds the objective should be that the principle of subsidiarity applies to ensure that the funds available are allocated to priority developmental areas decided by the Government within the framework of macroeconomic and structural guidelines established at Community level.

The report goes a certain way towards what I have been arguing, but then stops short and, once again, says that these priority developmental areas should be decided by the Government. Who better to decide the priorities than the people who live in these areas? If, as I believe, successive Governments have failed to identify and then prioritise the difficulties the west of Ireland faces economically, infrastructurally, and otherwise, what hope have we for the future in a new Europe if all power is to continue to reside with a central authority.

I agree that the Structural Funds have been narrowly defined. The first recommendation in the report states that there should be a concentration on the highest economic return per pound spent and in that it is somewhat confusing. Am I to assume from the first part of the recommendation that if it was to be redefined the priority would still be to concentrate on roads that give the highest economic return per pound spent? That has been the problem so far in the implementation of the Structural Funds programme. Most of the money has been spent in areas where there is the highest level of vehicular traffic and those parts of the country who are struggling for equality in Ireland — Galway, Sligo, Donegal, Clare and the south west — have been ignored. If one looks at a map of Ireland one will see clearly defined the main trunk roads and national primary routes. I do not for one moment disagree with priority being given to those roads in the first tranche of money from the Structural Funds.

The report points to the deficiencies in the way that criteria has been used. It has concentrated too much on those roads and ignored many others. How are we, in the west and the north west, supposed to attract industry, to be more competitive and to have greater access to the European markets in this brave new Europe we are being asked to enter, if our infrastructure and access are inhibiting factors.

I am pleased that in recent discussions the Minister for the Environment recognised the difficulty and said that, as far as he and his Department are concerned, in the next tranche of Structural Funds, post-Maastricht, he would be pressing for a reprioritising of where the money should be spent, in order to give the peripheral regions in Europe a better chance. I will give on example of what I am talking about. Reference was made to the development of our ports and there was criticism — and rightly so — of inefficiencies, particularly in Dublin port. It is a national scandal that we, as a trading nation, have so much difficulty in Dublin port that even after so many years as an independent nation we have not been able to sort out. There is something seriously wrong there and I know the Government are acutely aware of that. I hope it will be a priority for the Government and the Minister concerned, Deputy Geoghegan-Quinn, to sort out Dublin port. It is our primary port. It is a national scandal that we have these problems there between management and staff and, secondly that, as the report points out, and as a number of contributors stated, a greater proportion of our container traffic is going through the port of Larne. That is a loss to our economy.

With reference to access, prior to partition the part of the country I come from tended to orient itself more towards Belfast than Dublin. That tradition continues with the growth of the economy in the west and there is a desire for a better road network. Increasingly container traffic is using the route from Larne through Cavan, County Leitrim, into Sligo and on to Galway. It is called the N16 route. It has been neglected and very little money has been spent on it. I am pleased that on a recent visit the Minister for the Environment recognised the need to improve such roads. I am sure similar routes in other parts of the country have been neglected and not been allocated Structural Funds. I do not wish to labour the point, but because of the all-embracing nature of this report it would be impossible to go into it in detail. I concentrated on what I see as necessary in my part of the country.

If we are to continue to prosper as a nation we must have a better infrastructure and better access. There must be internal equality. We must take an outward view and improve our ports system and our air traffic system. The Government must continue to emphasise to our European partners, even to the point of boredom, that, after the Channel Tunnel opens in 1994 we will be the only island nation in the EC, a Community which, by the end of this century, will probably comprise 20 nation states.

We must look for more help from Europe. This is not a begging bowl approach. Our economy has been deliberately under-developed for hundreds of years. We are a young nation struggling to do the best we can in a difficult and competitive world. I believe Europe owes us equality so that we can then compete fairly and, to use that worst of all cliches, to level the playing field so that we can go into this brave new Europe and so that the opportunities of this decade of opportunity, which is talked about in the Culliton report, can be grasped by a youthful, vibrant, well educated and strong Irish economy for the betterment of all.

Mr. Costello

I welcome the Minister to the House. I would also like to welcome the Culliton report. It is a timely report. Certainly, members of the committee fulfilled their function within a very short time scale. It is a hard hitting report. It is a comprehensive report, covering the broad spectrum of Irish industry and related matters in terms of training and education. There are quite a number of critical points in the report. I would have certain reservations in relation to it being over general in its conclusions, even though it does make certain specific recommendations in terms of not referring to resources, particularly in relation to educational development. While it was quite critical, it did not spell out the fact that resources are the main problems that have been facing and bedevilling the Irish educational system at all levels. I would also be critical of the fact that it did not put sufficient emphasis on retention of existing jobs in our system and on the manner in which these jobs are shed. Redundancies are enforced, whether of the so called voluntary or compulsory nature. A creeping paralysis of casualisation has crept into all sectors of our industry and indeed, into our services as well. I have major concerns with all of these points. Finally — and this is something that has been close to my heart and close to the heart of the Labour Party — there is the need for a national development corporation. While there is talk about a new agency for indigenous industrial development — and I am glad to see that — that is seen as being largely in the category of managing indigenous industry rather than creating employment.

The opening statement in the executive summary might seem an eye opener to a lot of us who have been led to believe that we have an uncompetitive economy in this country. It reads as follows:

Irish industrial and economic performance over the past quarter century has broadly matched and, in some respects, exceeded performance in the European Community economies generally.

That is an interesting opening statement. Whatever the failings of our economy, whatever the difficulties and the historical problems in the past, there still has been enormous progress made in terms of growth in the economy and of exports within our economy. Perhaps that has never been truer than within the last five or six years. With all its faults, we have an economy that has clearly been growing and matching EC growth over the last quarter of a century.

My biggest problem about all of that is that, while we have been growing in economic outturn, we have also been growing in unemployment. To my mind, that is the great conundrum, the great puzzle and the great disappointment of the Irish economy. When we look at what has been happening we can see from the figures over the last five or six years an annual average growth rate of 4 per cent to 5 per cent. It is a bumper growth rate, far exceeding the annual average of the top performers in Europe, such as Germany. We have exceeded their growth rates. We have really come to terms with the fact that we are an island country. We are exporting an enormous quantity of our goods. Our trading surplus of exports over imports last year was £2.165 billion. That is and absolutely whopping surplus to have. The problem is that that money, instead of being channelled back into productive investment in this country, seems to be going astray. It has either been repatriated to the multinational in some foreign country, or else it is heading off to some tax haven like the Cayman Islands.

I thought it was astounding to listen on the radio yesterday to the former Minister for Education, Deputy Davern, making an impassioned plea for a tax amnesty for Irish citizens who have money abroad. He knows that there is a figure of at least £3 billion that has been laundered out of this country in one form or another; but they want to bring it back into the country to be put into productive purposes but not to pay tax on it, either from the export side or on the return side. That reflects what has been happening to our economy over the last five or six years. We have been producing a lot of wealth. Profit has been made with our exports. The money has been sent abroad. It has been banked abroad. It has not been repatriated to this country. Therefore, from the wealth that has been created in this country we have not got the return to plough into productive purposes. In fact, it is going into various tax havens and various deposit accounts in other countries. That is something that must be seriously addressed. Where is this surplus money that has been generated? Where has it been going, at an annual average of in excess of £1.5 billion? As I said, this year and last year it was in excess of £2 billion. I would like to know where it is going. We must look into that and tackle the problem. It has not been referred to in the Culliton report. I would like to see it referred to in the Culliton report, together with a programme on how to deal with it.

The other aspect of the matter that I am particularly concerned with is reflected very well in the opening statement to the Programme for Economic and Social Progress made by the ex-Taoiseach, Deputy Charles J. Haughey, in January 1991. It reads as follows:

This programme is a strategy to accelerate economic and social progress in the nineties. The strategy is simple. It is to maintain a low inflation economy with a stable exchange rate which can compete internationally and give us the higher standards of living and improved social services to which we aspire.

In other words, what the then Taoiseach was saying there was "Let us create the right climate and then, automatically, we will get the return in terms of living standards and improved services and employment". This has been done. This is precisely what we have been doing during the Programme for National Recovery. There were very low wage increase rates of 2.5 per cent. There has been a low interest rate. Low interest rates are very important and indeed would have been even lower but for the problems from the Deutsche Bank. They are still extremely low. We have a very low inflation economy. We have had all the things that create a stable proper climate, which our financiers and industrialists were saying were going to give this country the push to resolve our unemployment problem. The problem is to equate one with the other. It is not realistic to imagine that you could create a climate suitable for the industrialists and leave it at that. It cannot be left as though it was in the hands of God or the hands of the industrialists. You must intervene because industrialists and the business community are in the business primarily for profit, not to create employment. Unless and until a government adopt a policy where they create the climate for greater wealth, and the industrialists and business people as the recipients of that greater wealth, have a moral responsibility to ensure that such extra wealth is not put into little nest eggs abroad but is put back into the economy for the creation of jobs, we will be in trouble. We are not making any progress. The figures are astonishing.

In 1980 we had roughly 100,000 unemployed, in 1992 we have almost 300,000 unemployed. Our unemployment level is now more than double the European average. It is 9.2 per cent in Europe while in Ireland the figure is over 21 per cent, and rising. That is extremely serious. Until the Government's strategy of the last five years is re-examined, reviewed and dealt with I cannot see how a report of this nature will improve performance. It will no doubt help to streamline economic performance but it will not translate into job creation. Job creation must be our primary target. We can create as much wealth as we want but wealth is of no use if it is lying in a bank vault; it is only useful if it improves the quality of life.

We have set up a national jobs forum of both Houses of the Oireachtas. We in the Labour Party believe this is a desirable development. The proposal came initially from the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed. They felt that we should establish a forum on the lines of the New Ireland Forum. That forum came up with some very fine ideas on how to make progress on the problems between ourselves, Northern Ireland and Britain. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions have espoused the idea of a jobs forum and put pressure on the Government to take it up. I am disappointed that it is simply an Oireachtas Committee which can call on expert advice and information and set up further subcommittees. I believe the varied interests in the unemployment and the job creation sectors should be represented on the committee as should the trade union movement, the organisation for the unemployed and the training agencies. If they can be called in at the whim of the 19 members of the committee, they will play a secondary rather than the full participatory role which I regard as necessary.

However, I welcome this body, but I propose that we establish a channel to identify job opportunities at local level. As well as a national forum we need a local jobs forum. That is a simple, logical deduction. The people on the ground who know the scene, are in a position to participate in and to channel the information towards the broader forum. A local jobs forum would be complementary to a national jobs forum as well as having the expertise to identify and exploit job opportunities. It would have to be representative of all those interests which are not formally represented in the national forum. It would have to represent local areas, the trade union movement, the National Organisation for the Unemployed, residents' associations, tenants' associations, training agencies, educational bodies and job creating agencies or our economy will never be turned around again.

In the Lemass and the Whitaker era's important initiatives were taken to attract multinational industries. I do not think we can ever again think in terms of looking abroad for, say, a multinational chemical industry to set up in a black spot in the west or in Dublin and believe the problem has been dealt with. That is all right for a number of years but it is not a long term sustainable job creation policy. It is becoming even less so now than it was with environmental considerations it will be even more difficult in future to bring in such industries.

The Culliton report emphasises the indigenous potential for job creation, but I would take it a step further. It is not by setting up major industrial developments that we will work our way out of this terrible crisis and scandal of unemployment but by the creation of one job here and one job there at local level. We must examine under the microscope the potential for employment and development and identify what resources are available in local areas. We can then get to work through the local forces which can create employment and then call on the broader agencies that should be available to the national jobs forum. I would like to see us to take that important step towards coming to grips with job creation. I sincerely believe that the national jobs forum will become a talking shop unless we take the necessary steps to ensure that what I am suggesting is implemented.

I am concerned about many matters in my own area. For example, the Trinity College Centre for Urban and Regional Studies did a survey last year which revealed that only 12.2 per cent of the people employed in the north inner city area, from Seán McDermott Street to the Liffey, in trading, business, industrial and commercial activities lived in that area; the other 88 per cent commuted. We have to find out why employers do not employ people who obviously need work in these unemployment black spots. Is it because there is a bias against these people or is it that they do not have the necessary skills? Why should commuters be employed before residents? We have to address that issue, and the only way to do so is to bring the business sector together with the local residents' associations and let them ask and answer questions. That is a reasonable proposal.

We have to ask why a city like Dublin, which has a quarter of the population, should have a third of the nation's unemployment. If there is an imbalance in terms of the focus of job creation agencies away from the city, away from the capital — and I understand this is true of the other major urban centres — then we have a responsibility to refocus because all the people are equal and should have an equal right to the resources available for job creation. That problem should be addressed.

We lack a multi-dimensional approach to our problems. In the north inner city there is Bolton Street College of Technology, the College of Catering and the College of Marketing and Design. The Culliton report refers to clusters of new industry and the IDA have put a small enterprise development in Gardiner Street. Close by is the College of Marketing and Design. Is there a chance of the marketing skills of the College of Marketing and Design will be used by the IDA to assist in the small enterprise units that have been established there? The College of Marketing and Design do not think that it has, in addition to its national responsibility to provide educational services, it also has a local responsibility to see what it could do. These people must be brought together and shown they can feed off each other in terms of job creation and benefiting the lives of local people. It is not done, but we should be able to bring them together. We have many third level education institutions in the heart of a most deprived area that has the biggest unemployment rate in the country but there is no interaction between them and the community.

I am concerned also with crime and vandalism in Dublin's inner city, one of the greatest disincentives for prospective industrialists. The IDA never think about matters like that but Bord Fáilte and Dublin Tourism tell people to turn to the left from Connolly Station and go south rather than north where they would be mugged and that there are no-go areas on the north side. This does not contribute to development or lead to money being spent by visitors in that area. We must look at that instead of leaving everything to the gardaí. The small traders in the inner city would love to stop Bord Fáilte giving such information to visitors who come to our city. Why can we not bring the agencies together on that and ensure that the facilities and resources are put in place to open up the no-go area and ensure that sufficient positive developments take place there. I have ideas to put forward. It is an area of enormous heritage and people like Sean O'Casey, Brendan Behan and James Joyce had associations with it.

Mr. Manning

And Senator David Norris.

Mr. Costello

Yes. Deputy Charles Haughey is not far away. Mountjoy Prison is up the road. Many American visitors had relations detained in Mountjoy during the trouble times.

Minister of State at the Department of Industry and Commerce (Mr. M. Ahern)

And on Spike Island.

Mr. Costello

We are talking about Dublin. We need to use some lateral thinking in our approach to this. We must be more imaginative. I have very few complaints with the Culliton report which contains an enormous amount of thoughtful, reflective and statistical information and fine recommendations. Nevertheless, I am not satisfied it will do much to reduce unemployment and nothing should have a higher priority than that.

At the outset I quoted a statement that showed that we have been, broadly speaking, quite competitive, in economic terms, with our EC partners but we have not reduced unemployment. Our figures are more than double the European average and well in excess of those for other peripheral countries like Spain and Portugal. I suggest that in dealing with the problems addressed in the Culliton report we should expand our vision to more specific areas of concern and take in more imaginative ideas.

Minister of State at the Department of Industry and Commerce (Mr. M. Ahern)

I thank Senators for their comprehensive and incisive contributions to this very important debate on the recommendations in the Culliton report. The range of issues covered in the debates which we have had both in this House and in the Dáil on the report will, I hope, help dispel the popular misconception that industrial policy begins and ends giving State grants to companies.

The Seanad has always had a unique contribution to make in debating issues of substance such as this because of the breadth of interests represented here and the depth of the knowledge and experience of each Senator within her or his sphere of activity. I am therefore very glad that I have had the benefit of hearing some, at least, of the contributions and regret the fact that I was unable to hear them all.

It is fair to say that for all of us the overriding concern at present is the issue of unemployment. The unemployment figure of 280,000 represents a social and economic crisis for our country. The prospect that this figure, enormous as it is, might well become higher over the next decade is chilling. The high level of unemployment has its causes in a wide variety of external and internal socioeconomic factors. There is little we can do about many of the external factors, but there is a great deal we can do to tackle any domestic factors which inhibit job creation.

While the Government are and will continue to play their part in finding solutions to the problem of unemployment, we need to bear in mind, however, that State funds alone will not create jobs or wealth. Indeed, by attempting to spend our way out of the unemployment problem, we are left with a legacy of debt and growing interest payments. The constraints on State funds, and the size of our debts, do not allow for unlimited expenditure. The only leeway which will arise in this area will be from the substantial Cohesion and Structural Funds arising under the Single European Act and following acceptance of the Maastricht Treaty by us. Even in these cases the use of these funds must be prudent and tightly focused so as to ensure that we get the maximum possible contribution to sustained employment and wealth creating projects.

I would like to refer to a point raised by more than one Senator, namely the regional structures for industrial development recommended by Culliton. It should be understood that what the Culliton group are advocating in this area are effective arrangements to tap local enterprise and initiative for industrial development purposes. I do not see it as calling for major change in relation to the existence of Údarás na Gaeltachta as constituted. The main purpose of the reference to both Údarás na Gaeltachta and SFADCo appears to be to ensure that promotion and incentives for all regional bodies should operate within guidelines established at central level to ensure consistency. SFADCo have no difficulty with this. My understanding is that Údarás na Gaeltachta operate within similar general guidelines and, accordingly, the Culliton recommendations would imply no change in the present operational arrangements.

The approach advocated by the Culliton group includes a full recognition of the need for effective regional development and the promotion of local initiative.

I would like to conclude this debate on an optimistic note. It is undeniable that we have a daunting task in combating the seemingly intractable problem of unemployment. Yet as a people we are noted for our ingenuity and creative abilities and I feel strongly, therefore, that, given the serious common purpose that now exists across the political parties and in society as a whole, solutions must be found and they will be. In this regard, I look forward to a fruitful outcome to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Employment. Above all, I would share the view of the Culliton report that what we most need now is to demonstrate a clear "determination to take charge of our future — to build an economy of real strength and permanence which will give jobs and wealth sufficient to our needs".

Question put and agreed to.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

When it is proposed to sit again?

Mr. Fitzgerald

It is proposed to sit at 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 14 May 1992.

Sitting suspended at 3.20 p.m. and resumed at 4 p.m.